Brushless motors offer an advantage over conventional brushed motors since there is no need for the brushes to make mechanical contact with electrical contacts on the rotor. The common configuration for a brushless DC motors is radial-flux, which is composed from two cylinders, a cylindrical stator and a cylindrical rotor (having an axial shaft), with a cylindrical air gap in between and in which the flux travels across the air gap in a direction that is radial to the shaft on the rotor.
In order to hold the two cylinders concentric and thus keep the air gap constant thickness in a radial flux motor, it is necessary to support the shaft at each end of the motor.
Given that many applications which are mechanically powered by a brushless DC motor do not intrinsically require a shaft, it is desirable to eliminate the necessity for a shaft and thus provide a cheaper and simpler structure. This is difficult to do with a radial flux motor due to the requirement that the two cylinders are held concentric and thus keeping the air gap between the cylinders at a constant thickness.
It would be desirable to provide an axial flux electric motor that ameliorates or overcomes one or more disadvantages or inconveniences of existing motors.
Reference in this specification to any prior publication (or information derived from it), or to any matter which is known, is not, and should not be taken as an acknowledgement or admission or any form of suggestion that the prior publication (or information derived from it) or known matter forms part of the common general knowledge in the field of endeavour to which the specification relates.